Multiple Stitches Research Articles

Elimination of Irregular Boundaries and Seams for UAV Image Stitching with a Diffusion Model

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) image stitching refers to the process of combining multiple UAV images into a single large-format, wide-field image, and the stitched image often contains large irregular boundaries and multiple stitching seams. Usually, irregular boundaries are addressed using grid-constrained methods, while seams are optimized through the design of energy functions and penalty terms applied to the pixels at the seams. The above-mentioned two solutions can only address one of the two issues individually and are often limited to pairwise stitching of images. To the best of our knowledge, there is no unified approach that can handle both seams and irregular boundaries in the context of multi-image stitching for UAV images. Considering that addressing irregular boundaries involves completing missing information for regularization and that mitigating seams involves generating images near the stitching seams, both of these challenges can be viewed as instances of a mask-based image completion problem. This paper proposes a UAV image stitching method based on a diffusion model. This method uniformly designs masks for irregular boundaries and stitching seams, and the unconditional score function of the diffusion model is then utilized to reverse the process. Additional manifold gradient constraints are applied to restore masked images, eliminating both irregular boundaries and stitching seams and resulting in higher perceptual quality. The restoration maintains high consistency in texture and semantics. This method not only simultaneously addresses irregular boundaries and stitching seams but also is unaffected by factors such as the number of stitched images, the shape of irregular boundaries, and the distribution of stitching seams, demonstrating its robustness.

WITHDRAWN: Incision capsulaire de la hanche en forme de U : un moyen simple de réaliser la capsulorrhaphie dans la maladie luxante de la hanche – Note technique

Developmental dysplasia of the hip is one of the commonest hip anomalies encountered in pediatric patients. Stabilization of the femoral head into the acetabulum is crucial for normal hip joint development. When surgical intervention is decided, open reduction is needed to remove any obstacle that hinders hip reduction. Capsulorraphy is an essential step for minimizing instability of the hip after reduction. The classic T-shaped capsular incision is done by two incisions: vertical limb parallel to femoral neck axis and a transverse one parallel to the inguinal ligament 5mm distally to proximal capsular attachment. The cumbersomeness of this technique was noticed in suturing of the resulted two flabs from this incision. So, the suggested U-shaped incision makes suturing of the capsule easier with multiple stitches. Level of evidenceIV.

U-shaped hip capsular incision: An easier way to do hip capsulorrhaphy in developmental dysplasia of the hip – Technical note

Developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) is one of the most common hip anomalies encountered in pediatric patients. Stabilization of the femoral head into the acetabulum is crucial for normal hip joint development. When surgical intervention is decided, open reduction is needed to remove any obstacle that hinders hip reduction. Capsulorraphy is an essential step for minimizing instability of the hip after reduction. The classic T-shaped capsular incision is done by two incisions: vertical limb parallel to femoral neck axis and a transverse one parallel to the inguinal ligament 5mm distally to proximal capsular attachment. The cumbersomeness of this technique was noticed in suturing of the resulted two flabs from this incision. So, the suggested U-shaped incision makes suturing of the capsule easier with multiple stitches.

230 A Rare Case of Catamenial Pneumothorax (CP) in a Middle-Aged Patient with Liver Herniation

Abstract Catamenial pneumothorax (CP) is the recurrent accumulation of air in the pleural cavity in reproductive-age women without concomitant respiratory disease. We report a forty-year-old lady with no past medical history first presented to her local hospital with haemoptysis, severe chest pain, recurrent spontaneous pneumothorax, and dyspnoea, coinciding with menstruation. In addition to a right-sided pneumothorax, in this admission, the chest radiograph showed a right-sided nodule overlying the right hemithorax, and CT showed multiple right-sided ‘pleural’ nodules on the diaphragmatic side. She underwent a single-port VATS procedure which revealed herniation of the liver through a centrally located diaphragmatic defect, together with the adhesion of the superior lobe to the parietal pleura. The diaphragm was repaired using multiple stitches, followed by buttressing and plication to cover further and reinforce the fixed portion, and a pleurectomy was undertaken to prevent recurrent pneumothorax. The aetiology of CP remains obscure. However, physiologic hypotheses, the migration theory, the metastatic or lymphovascular microembolisation theory, and the transgenital-transdiaphragmatic passage of air theory are mentioned in other literature. Radiological investigations such as CXR and CT scans showed pneumothorax or pleural nodule evidence, and Investigative inspection of the pleural diaphragmatic surface at thoracoscopy often reveals defects (termed fenestrations) as well as small endometrial deposits. These deposits have also been seen on the visceral pleural surface among women undergoing routine surgical treatment for recurrent pneumothorax. The most effective treatment strategy is early surgical repair and resection of the diaphragm and the affected lung with pleurodesis and hormonal therapy to achieve amenorrhoea.

Fracture phase field modeling of 3D stitched composite with optimized suture design

Stitch, a flexible method of enhancing interlayer toughness, is widely applied in engineering. The strength of sutures with various stitching patterns dominates the interlaminar fracture toughness. Understanding the breakage process of sutures is vital to determine the interlayer failure of laminated composites. The failure modes of the stitches, however, have proven challenging to predict due to a series of potential complex responses such as debonding, interfacial crack, edge delamination, and breakage. In this paper, we propose a new phase field scheme to explore the progressive failure mechanism of single and multiple stitches, leveraging the advantages of the phase field method for complex fractures without introducing additional failure criteria. We reconstruct the phase field driving force by considering both tensile and compressive components of strain energy in the phase field evolution to deal with multiple forms of damage simultaneously. The fracture energy is modified to distinguish mode-I and mode-II fracture toughness. The zero-thickness smeared interface model is derived from the original allocation with a thin interphase layer by asymptotic analysis, effectively approximating the coherent imperfect interface between sutures and polymer matrix. The feasibility of the developed phase field scheme is verified through benchmark examples and experiments. The stepped fracture process and strength of 3D stitched composites with various stitching patterns are examined and compared with each other to reveal the fracture laws and damage mechanism. This study implies that the failure of the stitching system is strongly associated with the structural symmetry, closure, and distribution of the hole positions. On this basis, a new stitching strategy is proposed with a 13% enhancement in tensile strength with identical stitching density, which can be further extended to optimize the bearing capacity of multilayer structures with more complex stitching patterns.

KnitKit

In this work, we introduce KnitKit , a flexible and customizable system for the computational design and production of functional, multi-material, and three-dimensional knitted textiles. Our system greatly simplifies the knitting of 3D objects with complex, varying patterns that use multiple yarns and stitch patterns by separating the high-level design specification in terms of geometry, stitch patterns, materials or colors from the low-level, machine-specific knitting instruction generation. Starting from a triangular 3D mesh and a 2D texture that specifies knitting patterns on top of the geometry, our system generates the required machine instructions in three major steps. First, the input is processed and the KnitNet data structure is generated. This graph structure serves as an abstract interface between the high-level geometric and knitting configuration and the low-level, machine-specific knitting instructions. Second, a graph rewriting procedure is applied on the KnitNet that produces a sequence of abstract machine actions. Finally, the low-level machine instructions are generated by adapting those abstract actions to a specific machine context. We showcase the potential of this computational approach by designing and fabricating a variety of objects with complex geometries, multiple yarns, and multiple stitch patterns.

Continuous Meniscal Suture Technique of The Knee

The menisci are fibroelastic structures interposed between the articular surfaces of the femur and tibia. They absorb impact and transmit load. Meniscal injury may compromise function and cause rapid joint degeneration, leading to the development of secondary osteoarthritis. Surgical treatment of meniscal injury is usually performed by arthroscopy, and meniscectomy or meniscal suture may be associated with such treatment. Meniscal repair should be considered when the injury compromises the proper functioning of the meniscus to recover its anatomy and function. Different meniscal suture techniques exist; the most widely used are the inside-out, outside-in, and all-inside techniques. The gold-standard repair technique is the inside-out technique. A drawback of this technique is the need to alternate between intra- and extra-articular structures for every stitch, which makes it even more laborious. We describe the continuous meniscal suture technique, also called “meniscal stitching,” for a medial meniscal bucket-handle injury. This technique is performed from the inside out and allows the surgeon to perform multiple stitches with the same thread quickly and effectively. This surgical technique is performed using a single meniscal suture device, called the “Meniscus 4 A-II” device (Síntegra Surgical, Pompéia,SP, Brazil).

Myxedema Coma: Improving Outcomes With Prompt Recognition and Therapy

Background: Myxedema coma, a misnomer for severe hypothyroidism, is a rare endocrine emergency with an incidence of 1.08 cases per million people per year and a high mortality rate ranging from 30-50%. A delay in diagnosis and treatment worsens the prognosis and increases morbidity and mortality. Delayed management often leads to decompensation, presenting as uncontrolled persistent hypothermia, severe electrolyte derangements, and a potential for ventilator requirement needing ICU care. We present a patient in hypothyroid crisis who was promptly managed in a non-ICU setting who demonstrated a relatively early improvement in vital signs, thyroid lab values, and return to baseline mental status. Clinical Case: A 75 year old female with past medical history of hypothyroidism, atrial fibrillation, hypertension, coronary artery disease, depression, tardive dyskinesia, and dementia presented to the hospital in the month of December due to confusion after a mechanical fall that resulted in a head laceration requiring multiple stitches. Trauma work up included a CT scan of the head that was negative. On presentation, patient was also hypothermic, bradycardic, hypotensive, and lethargic with an altered mental status. Sepsis work up was negative. TSH was checked on day of admission and found to be significantly elevated to > 100 mcIU/mL, consistent with severe hypothyroidism. Free T4 and total T3 levels were low. Patient was immediately given intravenous levothyroxine 300 mcg followed by oral levothyroxine 125 mcg daily. In addition, intravenous hydrocortisone 100 mg every 8 hours was started until adrenal insufficiency was ruled out with a normal cortisol level. Upon discussion with family, it was learned that patient had not been taking her home medications indicating non-compliance to thyroid replacement therapy as the etiology for her hypothyroid crisis. Within a day of initiating therapy, TSH levels drastically improved with a reduction by 50%. Bradycardia, hypotension, and hypothermia resolved as well. In three days, patient’s mentation improved back to baseline and TSH, free T4, and total T3 continued to normalize. Conclusion: This case demonstrates how prompt recognition of hypothyroid crisis and immediate therapy can lead to early improvement in outcomes such as reversibility of mental status, normalization of vital signs and lab values, prevention of escalation of care to an ICU setting, and overall morbidity and mortality.

口腔癌頸部郭清術後に創部に多発した縫合糸膿瘍の1例

口腔癌頸部郭清術後に創部に多発した縫合糸膿瘍の1例

Real-Time Orthophoto Mosaicing on Mobile Devices for Sequential Aerial Images with Low Overlap

Orthophoto generation is a popular topic in aerial photogrammetry and 3D reconstruction. It is generally computationally expensive with large memory consumption. Inspired by the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) workflow, this paper presents an online sequential orthophoto mosaicing solution for large baseline high-resolution aerial images with high efficiency and novel precision. An appearance and spatial correlation-constrained fast low-overlap neighbor candidate query and matching strategy is used for efficient and robust global matching. Instead of estimating 3D positions of sparse mappoints, which is outlier sensitive, we propose to describe the ground reconstruction with multiple stitching planes, where parameters are reduced for fast nonconvex graph optimization. GPS information is also fused along with six degrees of freedom (6-DOF) pose estimation, which not only provides georeferenced coordinates, but also converges property and robustness. An incremental orthophoto is generated by fusing the latest images with adaptive weighted multiband algorithm, and all results are tiled with level of detail (LoD) support for efficient rendering and further disk cache for reducing memory usages. Public datasets are evaluated by comparing state-of-the-art software. Results show that our system outputs orthophoto with novel efficiency, quality, and robustness in real-time. An android commercial application is developed for online stitching with DJIdrones, considering the excellent performance of our algorithm.

Continuous Meniscal Suture Technique of the Knee

The menisci are fibroelastic structures interposed between the articular surfaces of the femur and tibia. They absorb impact and transmit load. Meniscal injury may compromise function and cause rapid joint degeneration, leading to the development of secondary osteoarthritis. Surgical treatment of meniscal injury is usually performed by arthroscopy, and meniscectomy or meniscal suture may be associated with such treatment. Meniscal suture should be considered when the injury compromises the proper functioning of the meniscus to recover its anatomy and function. Different meniscal suture techniques exist; the most widely used are the inside-out, outside-in, and all-inside techniques. The gold-standard repair technique is the inside-out technique. A drawback of this technique is the need to alternate between intra- and extra-articular structures for every stitch, which makes it even more laborious. We describe the continuous meniscal suture technique, also called “meniscal stitching,” for a medial meniscal bucket-handle injury. This technique is performed from the inside out and allows the surgeon to perform multiple stitches with the same thread quickly and effectively. This surgical technique is performed using a single meniscal suture device that was developed by our group, called the “Meniscus 4 A-II” device.

Geometric modeling of knitted fabrics using helicoid scaffolds

We present a bicontinuous, minimal surface (the helicoid) as a scaffold on which to define the topology and geometry of yarns in a weft-knitted fabric. Modeling with helicoids offers a geometric approach to simulating a physical manufacturing process, which should generate geometric models suitable for downstream mechanical and validity analyses. The centerline of a yarn in a knitted fabric is specified as a geodesic path, with constrained boundary conditions, running along a helicoid at a fixed distance. The shape of the yarn’s centerline is produced via an optimization process over a polyline. The distances between the vertices of the polyline are shortened and a repulsive potential keeps the vertices at a specified distance from the helicoid. These actions and constraints are formulated into a single “energy” function, which is then minimized. The yarn geometry is generated as a tube around the centerline. The optimized configuration, defined for a half loop, is duplicated, reflected, and shifted to produce the centerlines for the multiple stitches that make up a fabric. In addition, the parameters of the helicoid may be used to control the size and shape of the fabric’s stitches. We show that helicoid scaffolds may be used to define both knit and purl stitches, which are then combined to produce models of all-knit, rib, and garter fabrics.

Laparoscopic reoperation for pediatric recurrent inguinal hernia after previous laparoscopic repair.

Recurrence is a concerning area in pediatric inguinal hernia repair. Various laparoscopic repair methods are available to treat recurrent pediatric inguinal hernia. We analyzed previous laparoscopic hernia repairs and report the outcomes of laparoscopic inguinal hernia reoperations in patients with recurrent inguinal hernia. Fifty-one patients who presented for recurrent inguinal hernia after laparoscopic hernia repair from September 2012 to May 2017 were retrospectively evaluated. Previous laparoscopic procedures were analyzed with respect to sac removal (removal vs. leaving in place), suture material (absorbable vs. nonabsorbable), and high ligation method (purse string vs. multiple stitches). We removed the hernia sac from all patients and performed suture repair of the muscular arch of the internal inguinal ring using nonabsorbable material. All patients (38 male, 13 female) had indirect inguinal hernias. No conversion to open surgery occurred. Forty-three (84.3%) patients developed recurrence within 1year after the previous operation [mean 8.7 ± 6.9 (range 3-33)months]. Twenty patients had concurrent hydroceles (39.2%); 16 were cord hydroceles and 4 were canal of Nuck hydroceles. In the previous operations, the hernia sac was not removed in 100% (51/51) of patients, absorbable suture material was used in 58.8% (30/51), and purse string high ligation was performed in 88.2% (45/51). No re-recurrence developed during a mean follow-up of 25.0 ± 12.6 (range 13-54) months. Laparoscopic reoperation with hernia sac removal and suture repair of the muscular arch of the internal inguinal ring with nonabsorbable material is an effective operation with few recurrences and complications.

Original "double-step" technique for large superior sulcus tumors invading the anterior chest wall without subclavian vessels involvement.

In some patients with complex Superior Sulcus tumors, a combination of surgical accesses may be required. For patients with very large tumors which invade the first ribs anteriorly and without subclavian vessels involvement, we developed a "double-step" technique to facilitate resection and reduce surgical trauma. The technique was performed on five patients with a bulky non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), four of whom had a Superior Sulcus tumor. All patients received a radical wide thoracectomy en-bloc with an upper lobectomy. Neither significant flail chest nor postoperative respiratory complications were observed. The method is based on the possibility of interrupting the medial extremity of the first rib beneath the clavicle through a limited, preliminary parasternal incision. The remaining ribs involved in the resection are also interrupted at the costo-chondral junction, leaving the sternum and clavicle intact. Once the medial limit of the involved ribs has been sectioned, multiple stitches are placed through the peristernal tissues and temporarily left inside the chest. Through a second posterior incision, the en-bloc chest wall and lung resection is easily completed. The previously placed peristernal stitches are collected and used for the medial fixation of the prosthesis. Using this technique the resection was radical in all cases. No major postoperative complications were registered. The technique has several advantages: trauma related to double access is negligible; radical resection is facilitated, anterior chest wall resection is accomplished without sternal or clavicular injury, en-bloc chest wall and lung resection is made straightforward despite the extended area of resected ribs attached to the tumor, released within the chest cavity; chest wall stabilization is simple and reliable. The only disadvantage is that the patient's surgical position needs to be changed.

Unified framework for automatic image stitching and rectification

Conventional image stitching methods were developed under the assumption or condition that (1) the optical center of a camera is fixed (fixed-optical-center case) or (2) the camera captures a plane target (plane-target case). Hence, users should know or test which condition is more appropriate for the given set of images and then select a right algorithm or try multiple stitching algorithms. We propose a unified framework for the image stitching and rectification problem, which can handle both cases in the same framework. To be precise, we model each camera pose with six parameters (three for the rotation and three for the translation) and develop a cost function that reflects the registration errors on a reference plane. The designed cost function is effectively minimized via the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm. For the given set of images, when it is found that the relative camera motions between the images are large, the proposed method performs rectification of images and then composition using the rectified images; otherwise, the algorithm simply builds a visually pleasing result by selecting a viewpoint. Experimental results on synthetic and real images show that our method successfully performs stitching and metric rectification.

Skin HDR Using the Varian Catheter Flap: A Case Study

To design an appropriate treatment approach for a patient who developed skin cancer on the left face/scalp and neck areas and was previously treated with external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) and HDR to the right neck and face/scalp regions, respectively. The patient was treated in 2012 to the right face and scalp using an HDR flap technique, with a total dose of 51 Gy in 17 fractions at 3 mm depth. He was also treated a few years earlier for a right neck tumor using an EBRT technique. The new left face and scalp HDR field was designed to avoid overlap with the concomitant left neck EBRT fields and with the prior HDR field to the right face and scalp. Two simulation sessions were scheduled for this case. During the first session, a mask was created and the left neck EBRT field borders were determined. The previous right face/scalp mask with HDR flap had been preserved to facilitate reconstruction of the treated volume in the event of re-treatment. A PTV for the left face/scalp HDR plan was contoured on the mask guided inferiorly by the left neck EBRT light field edge and superiorly by the PTV for the previous HDR right face/scalp plan. A wire was placed over the PTV contour. The required shape, size and orientation of the flap were evaluated. Needles were subsequently placed 1 cm apart inside the flap channels. The flap was carefully sutured over the mask with multiple stitches, to ensure no air gap between the flap and the mask, especially over the PTV region. During the second simulation session, CT images were acquired with the mask/flap in place and dummy wires inserted in each channel. A radiopaque marker was placed near needle #1 to help identify the needle numbers. The needles and corresponding source guide tubes were then labeled. The images were exported to Brachyvision, where needles were identified and the wire was contoured. The PTV was defined with a thickness of 3 mm, and limited in the other two dimensions by the wire. Critical structures (left eye-lens and skin) were contoured. The prescription was 51 Gy at 3 mm depth in 17 fractions, with 2 fractions per week. A plan was performed using a volume optimization approach. The following criteria were used: PTV D90% > 100%Rx; skin D 0.04cc < 145%Rx. The plan was exported to the HDR unit and a dry test was performed without the patient present to ensure that the needles had no obstruction and that their curvature was acceptable for treatment delivery. All HDR and EBRT plans were exported to MIM and a composite plan was obtained. The skin dose at the field interfaces and the left eye/lens dose were assessed. Using this methodology a clinically reasonable HDR plan was developed, meeting all criteria: PTV D90% was 103.6%Rx; skin D 0.04cc was 141%Rx; skin D 1cc was 130%Rx. The independent dose calculation agreement was within 1.5%. The PTVs for the right and left HDR plans abutted in a single slice. In all other slices there was a gap in between the two PTV structures. The composite isodose distribution was also analyzed, showing a small overlap area on the top of the head. No other overlap was observed. The DVH for the left eye/lens and for the skin at the interfaces was obtained and analyzed in MIM. The maximum skin dose from all plans was 125 Gy. The maximum calculated dose to the left eye was 50 Gy. The elapsed time between various treatment procedures was not taken into account for this composite plan, so the effective dose to the critical structures may be lower. The patient is blind in the right eye. To reduce the left lens dose, an eye shield was placed over the mask for the HDR treatments and the patient was asked to look to his right side. Measurements using OSL dosimeters were also performed for the left eye dose during the first treatment. The dose to the shielded left eye was reduced to 10 Gy for the HDR treatments. The patient finished the HDR and EBRT treatments for the left face/scalp and neck areas without major difficulties. The skin appearance improved. Followup will be needed to demonstrate the efficacy of the treatment.

Warp–weft directional bending properties of multistitched biaxial woven E-glass/polyester nano composites

The aim of this study was to understand the warp–weft directional bending properties of the developed two-dimensional multistitched multilayer E-glass/polyester woven nano composites. The warp–weft directional specific bending strengths and modulus of unstitched/nano composite structures were higher than those of the unstitched structures. Contrarily, the warp–weft directional specific bending strengths and modulus of unstitched structure were higher than those of the machine stitched and machine stitched/nano structures due to stitching caused filament breakages. When the stitching direction increased, the warp–weft directional bending strengths and modulus of the structures decreased. The warp–weft directional specific damaged areas of unstitched structure were higher than those of the multistitched and multistitched/nano structures. The addition of nano silica to the stitched structures improved their damage resistance slightly. It was generally found that when the number of stitching directions and stitching density in structures increased, the damaged areas of structures decreased. The failure of warp–weft directional multistitched and multistitched/nano woven E-glass/polyester composite structures was matrix breakages, partial and complete filaments, and yarn (tow) breakages in their surfaces. They had a local delamination in their cross-sections and the delamination did not propagate to the large areas due to multiple stitching. The failure was confined at a narrow area due to multistitching and resulted in the catastrophic fiber breakages. This was considered that the damage tolerance performance of the multistitched structures was enhanced due to stitching, in particular, at four directional stitching.

New flexible endoscopic full-thickness suturing device: a triple-arm-bar suturing system

A reliable full-thickness suturing device is necessary for pure natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES). The present study focused on assessing the reliability of a new suturing device. A total of 60 single sutures were tested to close 5-cm incisions in 8-cm square pieces of resected swine stomach. Each incision was sutured by an over-the-scope clip (OTSC; n = 20), a single hand-sewn stitch (n = 20), or a single triple-arm-bar suturing system (TBSS) stitch. The maximum pulling force durability (MPD) of each suture was tested. To assess the reliability of the TBSS for endoscopic full-thickness resection (EFTR), 60 EFTRs of 50 mm diameter were performed on excised swine stomachs. After EFTR, full-thickness sutures were made using 3-stitch OTSCs (n = 20), 10-stitch hand-sewn sutures (n = 20), or 10-stitch TBSS sutures (n = 20). Outcomes were the MPD test for both single stitch and multiple stitch applications and the suturing time for single-stitch sutures. In the single-stitch MPD tests, there were significant differences between OTSCs and hand-sewn sutures (P = 0.0002) and between OTSCs and TBSS sutures (P = 0.0001), but no significant difference between hand-sewn and TBSS sutures. The multiple-stitch sutures revealed significant differences between OTSCs and hand-sewn sutures (P = 0.0039), and between OTSCs and TBSS sutures (P = 0.013). There was no significant difference between hand-sewn and TBSS sutures. There were significant differences in suture times between OTSC, hand-sewn sutures, and TBSS sutures (P < 0.05). Both single-stitch and multiple-stitch sutures using TBSS have similar strength to hand-sewn sutures. TBSS is a reliable suturing device.

Occurrence of silk stitch abscess after surgery in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma

Objectives: To elucidate the predisposing factors and clinical characteristics related to the occurrence of stitch abscess after surgery in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Patients and Methods: The subjects were 232 patients who underwent excision and/or reconstruction and/or neck dissection for oral SCC using silk sutures for high ligation of the blood vessels. Detection rates and characteristics of patients with stitch abscess were retrospectively evaluated by comparing patients with and without stitch abscesses after surgery diagnosed by ultrasonography and findings of various modalities in 232 patients. Several echogenic dots with subtle acoustic shadows in a hypoechoic mass were identified as the characteristic findings of stitch abscess on US. The patient groups with and without stitch abscess were compared with respect to various factors to identify those that predispose to the occurrence of stitch abscess. The factors analyzed included patients’ sex and age, chemotherapy treatment, radiotherapy treatment, the presence of a history of allergy, and blood test results. Results: A significant correlation was found between the occurrence of stitch abscess and age, liver function abnormalities on blood tests, and the presence of a history of allergy. Multiple stitch abscesses clearly tended to occur more often than single ones in patients with stitch abscess. Conclusions: The occurrence of stitch abscesses was related to age, liver dysfunction, and/or the presence of allergies. When diagnosing stitch abscess, the occurrence of multiple stitch abscesses is important. Key words:Stitch abscess, oral cancer, predisposition, characteristics, squamous cell carcinoma.

Stitching algorithms for biological specimen images

In this paper, we address the problem of combining multiple overlapping image sections of biological specimens to obtain a single image containing the entire specimen. This is useful in the digitisation of a large number of biological specimens stored in museum collections and laboratories. In the case of many large specimens, it means that the specimen must be captured in overlapping sections instead of a single image. In this research, we have compared the performance of several known algorithms for this problem. In addition, we have developed several new algorithms based on matching the geometry (width, slope, and curvature) of the specimens at the boundaries. Finally, we compare the performance of a bagging approach that combines the results from multiple stitching algorithms. Our detailed evaluation shows that brightness-based and curvature-based approaches produce the best matches for the images in this domain.